Who Decides What's Spiritual?

And why do so many of us feel like we don’t belong?

What do you do when you believe in something more—but nothing seems to fit?

When you’re longing for something you can’t name? Searching for something you never find?

It’s a painful place to live.

And it’s not just a matter of belief…

It’s about finding our people.

It’s about a life that matters.

It’s about all the things we’d take for granted… if we were just like everyone else.

But we’re not.

No matter how hard we try, we just can’t seem to fit.

We can’t do religion. We can’t quite do the whole spiritual-but-not-religious thing.

But we can’t believe in nothing…

So we go along…

We learn to ignore the longing. But it never goes away.

And deep inside, we start to feel like there’s nowhere that we belong.

But is that really true?

Are the choices we’ve been offered really all there is?

We’ve been given a story about the world and where it’s headed.

We’re told that religion is dead. Spirituality is dying. Science and atheism materialism are the future of intelligent society.

“It’s evolution in action.”

We’re told that education will free us from superstition, and from outdated beliefs and devotions.

We’re told that seekers of faith have been replaced by seekers of spirit… And that seekers of spirit are giving way to seekers of knowledge…

Funeral by funeral, the world is marching from the sacred, to the spiritual, to the mundane.

But what if the story we’re seeing isn’t evolution in action?

Or even the tragic decline of a more spiritual society?

What if all we’re seeing… is history repeating itself?

Who Decides What’s Spiritual?

Once upon a time, it was thought that the words spiritual and religious were synonymous—that truth and destiny were given by God.

But it wasn’t so.

Every generation has their own ideas about what it means to be spiritual.

They have their own truth; their own values; their own aspirations.

And that means younger seekers will always have to break from tradition if they want to explore and express who they really are.

The spiritual-but-not-religious generation discovered their truth when they broke from the confines of organized religion.

They didn’t need a church to tell them what to believe—or what it meant to be spiritual.

They didn’t need a religion at all.

Their parents were appalled. But within a few short decades, tens of millions of people who had spent their lives feeling restless and dissatisfied were freed to explore a whole new category of belief.

And now it’s time to break from tradition again.

The False 3-Party System

The conventional wisdom is that human beliefs fit into one of three categories: the religious, the spiritual-but-not-religious, and the secular.

And when we look at it that way, it does appear that the world is marching towards materialism.

The problem is that the spiritual-but-not-religious label is not a catchall category for everyone who rejects organized religion.

It could be…

Perhaps it even should be.

But it isn’t.

It’s just another cultural movement that embodies and reflects the values of the people who created it.

And after half a century, the spiritual-but-not-religious marketplace is so saturated with the values and ideas of Boomer-age authors, it has institutionalized their opinions.

It’s become a religion of its own.

And the next generations aren’t interested.

Just as the Baby-Boomers rejected the values of organized religion, younger seekers are rejecting the spiritual-but-not-religious values of the Boomers.

And just like the last time, the old guard doesn’t get it.

They can’t see another option.

It used to be that you were either religious, or nothing.

And the spiritual-but-not-religious crowd had to fight to show that there was a third option; that the two-party system was inadequate.

Now we’re told to conform to the three-party system. And it’s on us to fight back and expand the field again.

That restless feeling you have? That sense that something is missing?

It comes from living too long in a place you don’t belong.

From being caged in a system that isn’t big enough.

But you don’t need to stay there anymore.

Human beliefs don’t fit into any number of categories.

There is no three-party system.

There are just the thoughts and ideals of a generation—there to bring us together, and then fall away when our day is done.

So, it’s true… We are turning away from religion.

And we areturning away from the spiritual-but-not-religious movement of the hippie generation.

But we aren’t turning off.

We still believe in something.

We just don’t believe in the options we’ve been given.

And that presents us with an opportunity…

Open Source Spirituality

Sometimes the reason you can’t find what you are longing for is because it simply doesn’t exist yet.

If you liked this post, please consider sharing, along with a brief comment of what you thought… It doesn’t sound like much. But these small gestures make a tremendous impact on building our community, and helping other wayward rebels find a perspective that they can resonate with.

And if it spoke to you, why not Join the Tribe? It's free.. And this is just one tiny piece of more than two decades of impassioned work...... And YOU probably belong here with the rest of us!!

In any case, thanks so much for stopping by! – \m/ – Z

About Zach Herbert

I teach people to do cool things with their consciousness, and break their brains with beautiful ideas.

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5 Comments

Anasays

So I was asked this question that I am not sure on how to answer. Did God give us a soul? how did we get a soul? If God didn’t give it to us?

This is the right webpage for anyone who would like to understand this topic.
You realize so much its almost tough to argue with you (not that I really will need to…HaHa).
You certainly put a fresh spin on a subject that has been written about for a long time. Excellent stuff, just wonderful!

Well, you’ve hit the nail on the head again!!! What a challenge to “build a new system”, one that feels more like “home” than the new-agey, spiritual but not religious, guru following options of the recent past…none of which have met my needs, though I am a tail-end Boomer. I can look back and see things in the distance that sound like something that should be remembered, hard to look forward to the yet uncreated to see if it fits. We do all have gifts, talents and things to offer. Totally nurture our strengths, acknowledge our weaknesses, our gimpy places, with compassion, not judgement, see how we can hold them and work with them, maybe heal them, turn them into our greatest gifts like Chiron, the wounded healer…sometimes our greatest challenges become our purpose and our gift to share. Thanks for your deep and inspiring thoughts.